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N RIFLEMAN BROWN 
CAME TO VALHALLA 



BY 

GILBERT FRANKAU 



Vt 



NEW YORK 

FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY 

1916 



Copyright, 1916 
Gilbert Frankau 



All rights reserved 



OCT -9 1916 



©CU444290 



How Rifleman Brown Came 
to Valhalla 

By GILBERT FRANKAU 



To the lower Hall of Valhalla, to the heroes of no renown, 

Relieved from his spell at the listening-post, came Rifle- 
man Joseph Brown. 

With never a rent in his khaki, nor smear of blood on his 
face, 

He flung his pack from his shoulders and made for an 
empty place. 

The Killer-men of Valhalla looked up from the banquet 
board 

At the unfouled breech of his rifle, at the unfleshed point 
of his sword, 

And the unsung dead of the trenches, the kings who 
have never a crown, 

Demanded his pass to Valhalla from Rifleman Joseph 
Brown. 

"Who comes, unhit, to the party?" A one-legged Cor- 
poral spoke, 

And the gashed heads nodded approval through the rings 
of the Endless Smoke. 

"Who comes for the beer and the Woodbines of the never- 
closed Canteen 

With the barrack shine on his bayonet and a fidl-cliarged 
magazine ?" 



Then Rifleman Brown looked round him at the nameless 

men of The Line, 
At the wounds of the shell and the bullet, at the burns of 

the bomb and the mine; 
At the khaki, virgin of medals but crimson-clotted of 

blood; 
At the ankle-boots and the puttees caked stiff with the 

Flanders mud; 
At the myriad short Lee-Enfields that crowded the rifle 

rack, 
Each with its blade to the sword-boss brown and its 

muzzle powder-black. 
And Rifleman Brown said never a word, but he felt in 

the soul of his soul 
His right to the beer of the lower Hall though he came 

to drink of it whole ; 
His right to the fags of the free Canteen, to a seat at 

the banquet board, 
Though he came to the men who had killed their man with 

an unfleshed point to his sword. 
"Who speaks for the stranger rifleman, O boys of the 

free Canteen? 
Who passes the chap with the unmaimed limbs and the 

kit that is far too clean?" 
The gashed heads eyed him above their beers, the gashed 

lips sucked at their smoke; 
There were three at the board of his own platoon, but not 

a man of them spoke. 
His mouth was mad for the tankard froth and the biting 

whiff of a fag, 

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But he knew that he might not speak for himself to the 

dead men who do not brag. 
A gun butt crashed on the portals, a man came stagger- 
ing in; 
His head was cleft with a great red wound from the 

temple bone to the chin, 
His blade was dyed to the bayonet boss with the clots 

that were scarcely dry, 
And he cried to the men who had killed their man, "Who 

passes the rifleman? I! 
By the four I slew and the shell I stopped, if my feet be 

not too late, 
I speak the word for Rifleman Brown that a chap may 

speak for his mate I" 
The dead of lower Valhalla, the heroes of dumb renown, 
They pricked up their ears to a tale of the earth as they 

set their tankards down. 
"We were both on sentry this morning, when the General 

happened along. 
He asked us our job in a gas attack. Joe told him, 'Beat 

on the gong/ 
' What else?' 

'Nothing else, sir/ Joe answered. 

'Good God, man/ our General said, 
'By the time you'd beaten that bloodstained gong the 

chances are you'd be dead. 
You'd put on your gas helmet, blast you, and you'd damn 

well put it on first!' 
And Joe stood dumb to attention, and wondered why he'd 

been cursed." 

[51 



The gashed heads turned to the Rifleman, and now it 

seemed that they knew 
Why the face that had never a smear of blood was stained 

to the jawbones blue. 
"It was black to-night in the trenches." The scarred heads 

craned to the voice, 
As the man with the blood-red bayonet spoke up for the 

mate of his choice. 
"You know what it's like in the listening-post, with the 

very candles aflare, 
Their bullets smacking the sandbags, our Vickers comb- 
ing your hair ; 
How your ears and your eyes get jumpy, till each known 

tuft that you scan 
Moves and crawls in the shadows till you'd almost swear 

it was man. 
You know how you peer and snuff at the night when the 

Northeast gas winds blow." 
"By the One ivho made its and maimed us," quoth lower 

Valhalla, "we know!" 
"He was forty yards from the Bosches when, sudden as 

Hell, there came 
The crash of a dozen machine guns, the orange spurts of 

their flame, 
And Joe stood up in the whistling spray to try and fathom 

their game. 
Sudden their guns cease firing, sudden his nostrils sniff 
The sickening reek of the rotten pears, the death that 

kills with a whiff. 

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Sniffs, and spots what their game is, and bangs on his 

cartridge case, 
With the gas cloud's teeth in his windpipe and the gas 

cloud's claws on his face. 
We heard his gong in our dugout — he only whacked on 

it twice — 
We whipped our gas bags over our heads and tucked 

them down in a trice. 
For the gas would have got us as sure as God if he'd taken 

the Staff's advice!" 
His head was cleft with a great red wound from the 

chin to the temple bone, 
But his voice was as clear as a sounding gong, "111 be 

damned if I'll drink alone, 
Not even in lower Valhalla ! Is he free of the free Can- 
teen, 
My mate who comes with the unfleshed point and the full- 
charged magazine?" 
The gashed heads rose at the Rifleman o'er the rings of 

the Endless Smoke, 
And loud as the roar of a thousand guns Valhalla's answer 

broke, 
And loud as the crash of a thousand shells their tankards 

clashed on the board: 
"He is free of the mess of the Killer-men, your mate of 

the unfleshed sword, 
For xve know the ivorth of the thing he did, as we know 

the speed of the death 
Which catches its man by the back of the throat and gives 

him water for breath; 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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As we know how the hand at the nvvrrtvt, vwvn awy w, , u 

seconds too long, 

When the very life of the front-line trench is staked on 
the beat of a gong. 

By the four you slew, by the case he smote, by the red gas 
cloud and the green, 

We pass your mate for the Endless Smoke and the beer 
of the free Canteen." 

In the lower hall of Valhalla, with the heroes of no re- 
nown, 

With our nameless dead of the Marne and the Aisne, of 
Mons and of Wipers town, 

With the men who killed ere they died for us, sits Rifle- 
man Joseph Brown. 

GILBERT FRANKAU. 

18-6-16. 



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